Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Beauty and the Beast

This week is the first bonus round of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The theme was armor and I had originally planned to do some vehicles from my Dust collection. But then my wife surprised me with some miniatures for Infinity for Christmas. I didn't actually get them until after Christmas because of shipping. When I saw the Nomad Lizard Squadron I knew I had to use it for this first round. I don't know why they call it "Squadron" when there's only one in the box... anyway!

Let me just say this thing was a beast to assemble. It literally took me the whole Saturday to pin, glue, pin, glue, wipe up the pool of tears on my paint desk, glue, and pin... then I was wondering why all my fingers are glued together but the miniature is still in numerous pieces. It was at this point I took a nap since I was already curled up in the fetal position under my desk. I woke up, pinned some more parts and glued them all together. By late evening I carried it to my garage like it was a Fabergéegg and sprayed it with gray primer.

While that was drying, I set to work on the base using the extra ammo belt and some small tanks that were supposed to attach to the back. Cut some plastic to make a storage bin and dropped the bits inside. I should also mention that while I was consulting the internet for pictures on how to assemble the battle armor that I noticed they had a pilot. My mind was churning and I thought, "This would go well for my entry!" I ordered it thinking I'd at least get it on Thursday. [Yes, I broke my rule of not purchasing any new mini's for the challenge]. I literally spent the whole week just painting this Lizard battle armor and occasionally tracking my pilot through USPS.

Thursday night it begins to snow. Most parts of the world would have called this a light dusting of snow. But in my part of Texas it's a bit of a novelty and traffic becomes an utter nightmare. This means shipping is delayed and my pilot will arrive on Saturday. Deadline is Saturday at midnight. I keep adding little details to the Lizard while watching for the mail truck. Finally at 1 pm I have it in the mail and I rush inside and pull out the figure. SO MANY TINY PIECES. I assemble and paint. Wish I could have done a better job on her, but there just wasn't enough time.

I also learned that when you paint something red and pink it is really difficult to get a good picture. I've made a note to myself to use more contrasting colors in the future. I did manage to make the deadline and these ladies are sitting there with a bunch of other wonderful entries. 50 total entries to the bonus round. So much to see! You can find them all here... AHPC Bonus Round.